The Watch
by TappinCastlefan
Summary: She didn't really know that the watch meant so much to her until she realized she meant so much to him. Post-"Knockout".


_This idea has been in my head for a while, and I finally got it out today. I know it's horridly overdue, being post "Knockout" and all, but what the hay. Thanks so much to my bestest friend ajksmusic for speed beta-ing! _

_Hope you enjoy!_

_**Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Hope you didn't think so.**_

_**Summary: She didn't really know that the watch meant so much to her until she realized she meant so much to him.  
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><p>The warm June air sweeps across her face as she lies on her towel in the grass. The little lake in front of her is quiet, only the faint sounds of miniature waves lapping against the shores to keep her company. It's sunny today – she's hoping she can get some sort of tan, but she's always been that kind of person that either completely burns or doesn't tan at all. So, sitting out in the sun in just a tank and shorts is taking a big risk.<p>

What the hell, she was living on the edge….

Yes, that was exactly right, she thought, as she stretched her arms up, feeling the all too familiar pull in her chest. She was a _real_ daredevil.

She was getting sick of sitting around doing nothing. Her life these days consisted of either being at the cabin, sore and tired, or being at physical therapy, pushing herself to be even more sore and tired. And most of the time she's by herself. But she has her cell phone, she can make a call at anytime and someone would surely drive out to keep her company.

But then again, she kind of likes the solitude. Gives her time to think about everything.

There's a bird in a tree somewhere chirping a little tune as she fiddles with her mother's ring around her neck. It's kept cool even during the summer heat.

Castle would try to convince her it's some sort of symbolism or some literary crap like that.

He'd also be ashamed that she really hasn't been able to read much since she got here. Her mind wanders too much to focus on printed words.

She opens her eyes and finds her dad standing above her, his figure casting a shadow over her face and torso.

"Mind if I join you?"

"'Course not."

He groans a little over-dramatically as he squats down beside her, "Not too hot out here for you?"

"Eh, I don't really mind it so much, considering I have nowhere to go and no one to be presentable for."

He feigns offense, "Hey, what about me?"

"Dad," she sighs, seeing right through his ruse.

They sit together in silence, basking in the warmth and the view of the lake.

Without her dad, Kate thinks, she doesn't know where she'd be right now. Probably in some live-in rehab facility, because no one would let her go home alone. She hadn't even given living with Lanie a second thought, though her friend offered repeatedly. They would have killed each other. They were both too opinionated to survive more than a few days in the same space. Esposito and Ryan offered, for form, but she knew that they were wary of the idea. And Castle, her last home-away-from-home host, had all but disappeared.

But there was her dad, holding up the spare key to the cabin, telling her he would drive her back and forth as often as she needed him to, that he'd leave her alone as much as she wanted, or not, and that he'd gladly handle all the frustration she had warned she'd dish out.

And he had stayed right with her.

A hand at her elbow to hold her steady, a warden when she tried to avoid taking her medication, a hug when she was inches from breaking down. Just…being her dad.

"Do you need me to get you anything? You've been out here for a while."

"Nope," she shakes her head and reaches out, resting her hand, palm up, in the grass. "Just you."

He takes her hand in his and smiles.

"It's nice out here," she wiggles a little – as much as she can – adjusting her position so that she's half on her back, half on her side, looking up at him with her head resting on her extended arm. "I don't think I've ever really given this place a chance to be beautiful until now."

"Well, you were always a rambunctious thing when we came out here in the summers. Your mother and I wondered if you were even human."

Kate lets out a light chuckle. Memories of her younger self flitting and skipping around the cabin property, refusing to sit still long enough to go fishing with her dad or cook with her mom.

"You never did want to just slow down and relax."

"I still don't want to slow down and relax. I just have no choice."

He squeezes her hand. "It's good for you though. The relaxing. And not just because you're healing."

She sighs. "I know. I just feel…unproductive."

"Won't be like this forever Katie. You'll feel better soon. I promise."

She shifts to sit up, involuntarily whining against the pain of moving against the push of gravity, and her dad's hands come to her shoulders, helping her move without having to bend too much.

"Thanks." She hates how breathless she sounds. Drained just from the effort it took to get outside and lay down, then to sit up again only an hour later. She felt like someone had dumped her in an eighty year-old's body.

It sucks.

"It's my job."

She rests her forearms on her legs – where else can she even try to put them? – looking down at her hands in her lap. The movement makes he ring dangle back and forth from her neck, a comforting weight against her chest when it bounces back. Her father's watch catches her eye, a faint glint of the sun along the metal rim. She's been wearing it everyday, too, even though like she just told her dad, she has no where to be and no time to really keep. But she wears it with the ring, because…well, in her mind they're a pair, her mother and her father.

She can see him watching her out of the corner of her eye, even through the curtain that her hair draws against her face.

Her right hand wraps around her left wrist, the dark leather warm. She thinks about how much her dad has done for her, in the past month and the past thirty-one years. She thinks about how much it hurt to help him after her mom died, and she can't even imagine how much it hurts _him_ to help her now.

She may have kept him from ever dying in the first place, but he had to actually _watch_ her die, lying in a cemetery of all places, blood pouring from her chest.

And now she was alive and here, and actually feeling_ better_ because of him.

Her fingers play with the tail of the strap for a few breaths before her thumb nail slips underneath the catch of the clasp and pops it up. She undoes the closure and lets the watch fall into her hand. She remembers the day she started wearing it like it was yesterday.

They were unpacking his things in his room at the rehab center where he was staying - where she decided he was going to go to get better. He had agreed, after days of fighting and countless tears, told her he would do it for her. She had been sitting beside him on the small bed in the room, the two of them looking through the brief photo album he brought to remind him of better days. The watch was sitting on the bedside table and when Kate reached over to hand it to him, he pushed it back at her.

"_You take it, Katie. I don't need it while I'm here, you hang onto it for me."_

She never offered it back and her dad never asked.

"Because you said I saved your life." She whispers.

"Hmm?"

"You told me to keep your watch because I saved your life." Her thumb runs back and forth over the piece as she talks. The poor thing's lived a hard life, the glass scratched and chipped, the leather scuffed and worn, but it always gets fixed – kind of like them, she thinks. "You know I've worn it almost every single day since you gave it to me?"

"I know you have. Sometimes I wonder why. It's a bit bulky for you, don't you think?"

"Not at all." She scoots over, no pain this time, and tucks herself into his side. "It's because I'm proud of you. That's why I wear it everyday. To remind myself to be as brave as you were back then."

He drops a kiss to her head. "You're so brave, Katie. So much more than I ever was."

She shakes her head but he keeps going.

"You've done so much that you should never have had to. Not just with helping me when no one else could, taking care of both of us after we lost your mom. You catch _killers_ Katie," he lets out a proud laugh, "you keep people safe and you help people feel better even when they don't think they ever can.

"You stun me. How beautiful you are, inside and out. I can't believe that the same screaming, angry little girl your mother and I took home from the hospital grew up so wonderfully. I don't there's another father on the planet who can be more proud of his daughter than I am of you." He squeezes his arm around her, "You're _my_ role model."

Kate has to swallow hard to keep herself from crying. It's taken them so long to get to this place where they're okay with everything about each other again. But they're Becketts, and they may be pretty damn stubborn, but they've gotten pretty damn strong, too.

"Here," she crosses her arm over her chest to hold the watch over to him, "I think it's time for you to wear it again. For returning the favor."

He eyes her curiously, lovingly, and takes the watch.

"I told you how I got this, right?"

Kate smiles and laughs just a bit, snuggling closer into his shoulder. "Mom gave it to you for your fifth anniversary, because she said you were always late for everything."

"Yup." He laughs with the memory of his wife joking, but serious, sitting across the table from him at their favorite restaurant, that night so long ago. "It didn't work out quite the way she planned though, because I still can't seem to make it anywhere on-time."

She hums, "It's the thought that counts."

He hands the watch back to her. "Which is exactly why I want you to keep it."

"But Dad-"

"Katie, there's a reason why you wear it. I'd feel wrong wearing it now, after it's meant so much to you for so long."

"But Dad, I was never supposed to keep it."

"Does that make it any less important?" He challenges.

Her answer comes out in a whisper. "No."

His hand wraps around hers, closing it around the watch. "Keep it. You don't have to wear it everyday if that's what you're thinking."

"No," she doesn't hesitate, nearly cutting him off. "I will."

"Besides, I'm not going to be the one to break the no give-back rule on gifts."

She turns as quickly as she can without pain to look at him. A half-hearted slap to his shoulder and her mouth drops open, "Did you _seriously_ just call no takesies-backsies?"

He laughs at her expression. "Hey, you started that!"

"Yeah," she argues, "when I was like…six, and Madison didn't like the Barbie doll I gave her for her birthday! It doesn't apply to meaningful family mementos."

"Well it should!" His face softens when he sees how serious she is. "Then how about this? How about, you keep it for now, and the next time you nearly die I'll let you give it back to me?"

She pinches her lips together, "Dad you said I'm not allowed to nearly die again in the next hundred years."

"Exactly." He sighs and pulls her back to his side, letting his arm hang over her shoulder. "Trust me, knowing that you're okay and out there making a difference is enough for me. Though I wouldn't argue with a phone call everyday for a while. Maybe for the next forty years, how's that sound?"

Kate laughs as she latches the watch onto her wrist again. Where it belongs.

"I think I can do that."

"Good," he kisses her head again, "you want to head in? I'll make lunch."

"Nope," she drapes one arm over her lap and reaches up with the other to hold his hand, "I'm happy right here."

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_

_**Tappin  
><strong>**=)**_


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